


Am I that transparent?

by AdelaideElaine



Category: Veep
Genre: F/M, Missing Moments, Sexual Themes, Strong Language Throughout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:29:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3941968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaideElaine/pseuds/AdelaideElaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh Dan, you kind of are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Am I that transparent?

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, this one is a real monster. It's based on a lot of ideas I've had over the past few seasons about some Dan and Amy interactions. Much of the dialogue is adapted from dialogue heard on the show. It is compliant with Season Four up through Episode Five.
> 
> I'm still working on my other Dan/Amy fic, "I'll Stand By You," as well. So check that out if you haven't already.
> 
> Thanks for reading! -- Lady

 

“You were great,” Dan says softly. He knocks his elbow playfully against hers.

 

“Yeah, I know,” Amy returns, with no need to fake confidence when she knows it’s the truth.

 

He leans closer with a familiar, conspiratorial air, and she doesn’t pull away. “Y’know,” he murmurs, “We could still be great.” A hint of a smirk plays about his lips.

 

Amy screws up her face. “We could?”

 

His emphatic, “Oh yeah” makes her smile against her will, a slight blush rising to her cheeks.

 

Dan lets his eyes wander down her body. He likes her tight black dress. “Can I ask you something?”

 

Amy blinks a few too many times, her hands tucked protectively under her chin. “Uh-oh.”

 

“Am I that transparent, really?” He teases.

 

“Dan, you kind of are,” Amy still fighting a grin.

 

“Well, Amy, I would love it…” he begins, eyeing her chest. Amy lets her eyes flick quickly down to his mouth. When their eyes meet, she raises her eyebrows challengingly. “…If you would give me…access to the White House.”

 

“Oh.” Amy bares her teeth, nodding through the disappointment she hadn’t realized she would feel.

 

“What?” Dan asks, all innocent and horrible. “Did you think I was going to ask you something else?”

 

Amy’s eyes go wide with fake shock. “No.”

 

Dan nods. “Okay.”

 

***

 

It wasn’t the _first time_ first time, but the first time it happened was on Catherine’s twenty-first birthday.

 

Amy was pacing the sidewalk outside the bar where they had had the misfortune to witness Selina and Andrew’s disastrous interactions. She was frantically smoking a cigarette and reflexively checking her phone for updates every thirty seconds. 

 

Dan was leaning against the side of the building and pretending to text. He was feeling smug because Ed Webster had already flagged a cab home after chastely pecking Amy on the lips. He knew that the return of Selina’s obnoxious ex-husband was what had truly torpedoed Amy and Ed’s date, but he was going to pretend that his own presence had been the reason. 

 

“Do you want to come back to my place and smoke?” Dan asked with practiced casualness.

 

“What does it look like I’m doing, asshole?” Amy snapped, waving her cigarette in his face.

 

“I don’t mean smoke,” Dan said with a lift of his eyebrows, I mean _smoke_.”

 

“Oh my God,” Amy replied, exasperated. “You can just say ‘smoke weed,’ no one gives a shit and you’re not cool.”

 

“You need to fucking chill out.”

 

“Sure,” Amy said, rolling her eyes as she dragged out the word, “I’ll just ‘chill out,’ _bro_.” She tossed her cigarette on the group and stomped it out before taking a few long strides to the curb and raising her arm to hail a cab. When one pulled up to her, she turned to Dan with a look that was half-expectant, and half-exhausted. “Are you coming or what?”

 

He scrambled into the backseat beside her and gave the cabbie his address. As the driver accelerated back into traffic, Dan glanced over his shoulder at the bar. “Oh, what about Jonah?”

 

His eyes met Amy’s and they blinked at each other before saying “What about Jonah?” in accidental unison. Equally amused and a little freaked out, they laughed all the way to Dan’s apartment to keep from having to talk to each other.

 

***

 

Amy thought about sticking around for breakfast the next morning, but then Dan sneered “I thought you didn’t date guys from DC,” as she picked her underwear up off his bedroom floor. He sounded unbearably smug and she remembered to hate him again.

 

She put her underwear back on. Slowly.

 

***

 

Selina watched Dan’s retreating back before turning to Amy. “Wow,” she marveled, “He’s taking that well.”

 

Amy smiled to herself, basking in the knowledge that she was too important to the Veep to be put on furlough during the government shutdown. “He’s like Spock. He doesn’t show his emotions.”

 

“Ever?”

 

“Ever.”

 

Selina’s tone turned suggestive. “ _Ever_?”

 

“No, not even then,” Amy assures her boss, suddenly ready for another topic of conversation.

 

Maybe there had been something a bit more…open about his expression, the night of Catherine’s twenty-first, as he panted and groaned above her. But she could blame that on the weed.

 

***

 

“Miss me, sweetie?”

 

Amy rolled her eyes luxuriously and pushed past him into his apartment. Dan shut the door behind her. “I thought you said that while I was on furlough there was no work-related contact allowed.”

 

Amy tossed her purse on the couch. “Who said anything about this being work related?”

 

Dan was clearly intrigued, drawing slowly nearer to where Amy stood, swaying slightly, with her hands on her hips. “You’ve been drinking.”

 

“So?” Amy said mulishly. 

 

“If you’re not here for work, why are you here?”

 

Amy paused, wondering the same thing herself. “Did you fuck me…just to fuck with me?” she managed, slurring her words only very slightly.

 

Dan’s smile faltered. “You’re drunk.”

 

“Were you just trying to fuck up my date with Ed?” Amy asked, like she was a foul-mouthed version of Nancy Drew closing in on a suspect.

 

“You shouldn’t tell people that you don’t date DC guys if you actually do,” Dan replied lightly, not quite meeting her eye. “Though if you made that up to avoid Jonah Ryan’s wandering hands, I understand why you did it.”

 

“It’s true,” Amy said stubbornly, almost stomping her foot. “I don’t date DC guys.”

 

“That’s a lie.”

 

Amy snorted. “And you hate lying.”

 

“We lie to other people,” Dan snapped, “Not to each other.”

 

His words hung in the air between them. Amy’s eyes were huge.

 

“Did you lie to avoid Jonah,” he asked, breathing heavily, “Or did you lie to avoid me?”

 

Amy swallowed hard. “I asked my question first.”

 

Dan was looking at her mouth. “I forgot what it was.”

 

“Did you take me home just to fuck up me and Ed?”

 

Dan looked at her like she was stupid. “I took you home,” he explained, carefully, “Because I wanted to fuck you. I have since the day I saw you in Senator Hallowes' office.”

 

“Because you thought I could advance your career,” Amy finished for him, her cheeks pink.

 

“Don’t,” Dan drew closer to her, pointing in her face, “Put words in my mouth when you don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

 

“Get your finger out of my fucking face!”

 

It was impossible to tell who reached for whom first. But one moment they were screaming at each other, and the next Amy felt herself crushed against his chest, his arms holding her so tightly that she was sure her feet were several inches of the ground. They kissed fiercely, teeth colliding momentarily, and Amy screwed her eyes shut.

 

***

 

By the time they finally pulled apart, naked and gleaming with sweat, Amy felt her wine buzz fading away. The cold air hit the dampness of her bare skin and made her shiver.

 

What was that Dan had said about his former boss’ daughter? _She’s hot, fun, and can advance my career._

 

Well, no one could accuse Amy of being fun.

 

She felt like she was sleepwalking as she rose from his bed and dressed in the dark. “Where are you going?” Dan mumbled sleepily. “You’ll never get a cab this time of night. Trust me, I try all the time.”

 

Amy didn't tell him that she could basically walk from his apartment to her own. Dan had never seen her place and she intended to keep it that way. “I’m leaving now,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’m going to spend the weekend in Boston with Ed.” She didn't look at him. “This is goodbye.”

 

Dan didn’t move or speak. Maybe he had fallen asleep.

 

She zipped up her skirt. “I’ll see you at work."

 

Amy’s feet were on the ground again. She walked home with her shoes in her bag. She would have rather been murdered in an alley than ruined by a Walk of Shame photo.

 

***

 

"What strategically useful young woman will get to witness your morning skin care routine next?” Mike taunted Dan obliviously.

 

Dan smiled and took a swig of his black coffee. It tasted appropriately bitter.

 

***

 

"Selina’s never been away so long without us before,” Amy fretted, scanning the room for available alcohol.

 

Dan was at her elbow, playing the husband. "I guess this is what it’s gonna be like when our kids go to college too, huh, sweetie?” he teased, leering down the open neck of her turquoise dress.

 

Amy made a face at him. Weddings made her uneasy. She longed for the familiar weight of her phone in her hand. She couldn’t really imagine Dan with a baby. She could probably imagine him eating a baby.

 

But he looked good in an expensive suit. 

 

 

***

 

Dan locked the ladies’ room door and pinned her against it. Amy squirmed. “We don’t have time,” she complained, unbuckling his belt with one hand.

 

“Oh God,” he groaned against the place where her neck met her shoulder. “Jesus, Amy.” He ran his hands under the hem of her dress, feeling the tops of her stockings. “You’re so hot it’s unfair."

 

She didn’t really know what that meant, but she decided not to ask. Dan pushed inside her and Amy gasped, her two phones buzzing, forgotten, in her purse.

 

***

 

The next time Amy was on top, straddling him on his shabby gray couch. He dressed in fine suits by top designers, but his furniture was all from Ikea, sleek and flimsy. It looked like a college kid’s first apartment. This only infuriated Amy more.

 

“What did you ever do to deserve Campaign Manager?” She panted, riding Dan with her pencil skirt pushed up around her thighs. “ _I_ should have been fucking Campaign Manager.”

 

“You _are_ fucking the Campaign Manager, pumpkin,” he hissed, clutching at her hips and leaning his head against the back of the couch as he thrust into her.

 

Amy let out a scream of frustration as she came.

 

***

 

Amy left Dan’s bedside at the hospital but returned to his apartment that night. They watched TV in silence and she let him rest his arm on the back of the couch, behind her shoulders. They fell asleep during Colbert re-runs and the next morning Amy assured herself that it didn’t count as sleeping over because it had been an accident.

 

"You could have been a real bitch,” he said later, “But you’ve been great.”

 

Amy wondered what things would have been like if their positions had been reversed. Would Dan have visited her in the emergency room?

 

She had no time for what-ifs. She was finally Campaign Manager.

 

But for the record, she doesn't think he would.

 

***

 

"I gotta say you’re doing a great job,” Dan admitted, just a little bit patronizing. "Seriously you do me better than I do me."

 

Amy smirked. “You do yourself a lot.”

 

Dan had no response to that. It wasn’t untrue.

 

_I wouldn’t have to do myself so much,_ he texted her late that night, _If you would come over and do me instead._

 

Amy sank deeper into her bath. _Last time was the last time_ , she responded, holding her phone above the water.

 

_ You said that last time. _

 

_ I wasn’t campaign manager last time. _

 

_Fair enough_. Amy watched the three blinking dots indicating an incoming reply. _I’ll be thinking about you._

 

Amy dropped her phone onto the bathmat and let her hands slip beneath the water.

 

***

 

"POTUS is resigning. Selina’s president.” As soon as she told Dan, it was real. They stared, wide-eyed, at each other, for one long moment, and then everything went crazy.

 

Dan pulled her into a closet and kissed her frantically while the rest of Selina’s staff fought over their bag of take-out food. _Classic Dan_ , Amy thought, _power made him horny_.

 

They had that in common.

 

She liked the way he pressed her breasts confidently into his hands, because when it came to sex, Amy didn’t want to fuck around. She liked the way a low rumble rose up from his chest when she ran her hands through his hair. 

 

But there was so much that needed to be done. And Amy was so goddamn hungry.

 

She pushed him aside and returned to the office. Dan emerged seven minutes later looking faintly embarrassed. He glared at her over a carton of chicken fried rice. 

 

It truly was, Amy reflected, a great day.

 

***

 

Amy didn’t go visit him after Selina fired him. She did wonder, idly, if he had grown another breakdown beard, and if the second one looked as good on him as the first one had.

 

Sex was not a priority. Amy could feel Bill Erickson circling like a vulture.

 

They shared an elevator ride the day after the Easter Egg Roll. “Why Dan?” Amy muttered, through clenched teeth, finally letting her curiosity get the better of her. “Why not Ben?”

 

Erickson glanced up from his cell phone. “I thought it was explained quite plainly. We need Ben in case the other shoe drops.”

 

Amy still looked mystified. “But why not the other way around?”

 

“Because, Amy,” Erickson said faux-patiently, as if he were explaining something to a very slow child, “If it ever came down to it, Dan would side with you. And I don’t want people like that as a part of this administration?”

 

“People like that?” Amy repeated, her brow furrowed.

 

Ericsson looked sardonic, as always. “People who think with their dicks.” He shook his head. “We all see the way he looks at you.” He returned to texting. “Don’t play naive, it doesn’t suit you.”

 

Amy stared straight ahead until the elevator doors parted and released her.

 

***

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

Amy blinks a few too many times, her hands tucked protectively under her chin. “Uh-oh.”

 

“Am I that transparent, really?” He teases.

 

“Dan, you kind of are,” Amy still fighting a grin.

 

“Well, Amy, I would love it…” he begins, eyeing her chest. Amy lets her eyes flick quickly down to his mouth. When their eyes meet, she raises her eyebrows challengingly. “…If you would give me…access to the White House.”

 

“Oh.” Amy bares her teeth, nodding through the disappointment she hadn’t realized she would feel.

 

“What?” Dan asks, all innocent and horrible. “Did you think I was going to ask you something else?”

 

Amy’s eyes go wide with fake shock. “No.”

 

Dan nods. “Okay.”

 

Of course, Sue would call with shitty news at that exact moment. Amy feels like invisible strings are attached to all her joints, yanking her, stiff and puppet-like, towards the ceiling. Tears prickle behind her eyes and they only make her feel angrier.

 

Dan looks at her with what might very well be genuine concern, and Amy realizes that she hadn’t realized how much she actually missed her office enemy-turned-ally.

 

“I feel like I’m on life support,” she manages, struggling to find the words for the gnawing dread in her gut, “And they keep pulling the plug to charge their cell phones.”

 

Dan suggests tequila shots and Amy gladly agrees. 

 

They’re three shots in, apiece, when Amy feels the pressure of Dan’s broad hand on her leg, in between her knee and the place where her dress begins. “When I asked you about getting me access to the White House, earlier,” he drawls, rolling the hem of her skirt between his fingers, “What did you think I was going to ask?”

 

“N-nothing,” Amy stammers.

 

The bartender is serving customers at the other end of the counter. Dan’s lips are almost on Amy’s neck as he whispers, “Because if you thought I was going to proposition you for sex…I wouldn’t blame you.”

 

Amy glances at Dan but says nothing.

 

“I mean…” His fingers trace along the skin just beneath the edge of the fabric, “It’s happened so many times before.”

 

“Not that many times,” Amy scoffs with a toss of her head.

 

“Not as many times as I would like.” She can feel his breath on her cheek. The tequila scorches her insides. “I still want you. You drive me crazy.”

 

“I missed you,” Amy admits, shortly.

 

There’s a mad twinkle in Dan’s brown eyes. “You’re not happy with Selina’s team. Come work with me and we can rule the world.”

 

“I don’t want to rule it,” Amy states crisply, flagging down the bartender for the tab. “I want to change it.”

 

“Same difference,” Dan shrugs.

 

“It’s not,” Amy snaps. “And anyway…I’m not the co-ruling type.”

 

“Well, if you ever change your mind—“

 

“Dan,” Amy cuts him off. “I don’t want to talk business tonight.”

 

She doesn’t need to tell him twice. 

 

 

***

 

“That,” Amy mumbles, her cheek resting on his bare stomach, “was the last time.”

 

Dan laughs and plays with her hair. 

 

It’s not the last time.

 


End file.
